After my parents and brothers passed away in a carbon monoxide accident while I was gone away on a mission, life became A New Normal for me. As I go through life experiences, my eyes are continuously opened to a new perspective on life.
Perhaps in your life, you are figuring out your own "New Normal." Life is always changing, but that doesn't mean you have to be alone.

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"If life were a movie, I'd be the star... haha that is how chaotic my life is..." - Me via a text message to one of my best friends.
And it's very true...
A little over a month has passed since everything has happened. It feels almost as if a lifetime has happened! So full! So much can happen in such little time...
And so many emotions can happen in such little time. It's kinda of crazy, really.
I've been the angriest that I've ever been. I've been the saddest that I've ever been. I've been the numbest I've ever been. I've also been at some of my happiest points.
Something interesting about after a tragedy happens; you CLING to the happy moments. You cling to anything that makes you feel good. You'll jot down notes to yourself, "This is good. This makes me happy." Because you don't want to lose that happiness. You want a taste of the familiar.

My home is a disaster. (Mom would not be happy with me right now...) Letters, cards and packages from a variety of caring people, wanting to do anything that they can to help. A basketball signed by the BYU Provo basketball team. Things that have been gathered, sitting in the living room, waiting for voyage to D.I. Things that I want to save. Chocolates. Clothes.

Chaos. A little bit how I feel about life.

These past two weeks have been the slowest and yet the fastest that I've ever experienced in my life.

There are 5 steps in the grief:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

Simple. Yet complicated. Or, my favorite word... Unfigureoutable. Why? Because we all grieve differently. Some people take control of the situation. Some people handle things well. If you're like me, you go on "shut-down, don't talk to me" mode.

Which may not be the best way to handle a funeral. Because I wanted nothing more than to just run away from the world and hide.

Life is unfigureoutable. One minute, it's going one way. And then the next, your life is forever changed.

My name is Jensen Parrish. And my life has been changed.

I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving in the Washington, Vancouver Mission, speaking American Sign Language. I had been out for a year.
My brother, Ian Parrish, was also a missionary for the church, serving in the South Dakota, Rapid City Mission.
Our missions meant EVERYTHING to us. The growth that we developed there has truly changed our lives. The principles that we taught became firmly rooted in us. Little did we know, that our testimonies of those very principles would be put to the test, in the most unexpected way.

On February 23, 2014, just three days after my year mark of being a missionary, I received the news from my mission president and his dear wife, that my mother, my father, and 2 younger brothers had peacefully passed on from this life into the next. The cause …